


Burden

by ylrissa



Series: The Fate Trilogy [2]
Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: F/M, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-15 21:39:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10558124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ylrissa/pseuds/ylrissa
Summary: The preparation for the Siege of Orgrimmar begins, throwing faction differences aside as the world joins to rid of a common evil. Faine is fueled by the hope that Corriana is still alive, as well as her burning anger. Part two of a planned trilogy.Rated T for language, but soon to be M for naughtiness. Set during MoP.Updated sporadically.Eventual OC/Varian Wrynn, and a suggested OC/Lor'themar relationship.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Please read my story Rise before getting into this one, or else it won't make sense at all.

She sat by the edge of a window, observing her breath fog up the multi-coloured glass. Her eyes were momentarily concealed of the sight beyond the pane, millions of intricate snowflakes twirling along the breeze before grouping together on the sill outside. The icy air battled with the breath of her own, once again triggering the lively warmth of her exhale to scamper off, revealing a snow-shrouded Silvermoon City.

Her skin was ablaze, singed to the very bone by her irate irritation. Her fingers tapped a solemn song upon the calloused grains of wood, conflicting with the sweltering sentiments that quarrelled within her. She was mislaid there; in herself, and in the outbreak of crystals beyond her face.

"Faine?" A voice called, someplace behind her. It broadcasted inaccurate to her pointed ears. Rather than having the voice echo itself, she turned.

Her exhausted eyes met the blithe, jade ones of Evagria, the young paladin she had brought with her from the depths of Stormwind. Her coffee hair had been gusted amiss by the heartless winds outside, dappled with snowflakes. The button-like nose that sat above full lips was tickled pink, as were her ears, yet she did not seem phased by any of this. "Your cousin is here," the blessed elf breathed after an extended absence of muteness, before adding, "Eraline."

Faine sat back from her perch, her naked shoulders pressing against the frozen glass behind her. She collected her thoughts before speaking. "Send her in. Sit downstairs with my mother until my homecoming from the Spire." The brunette nodded once, twisting her way through the door.

A mere moment later, a woman entered, almost indistinguishable to the settled elf. The only suggestion that they were not the same was the absence of scarring on the former's visage.

She stepped to Faine with resolution, seating herself without an invitation. Faine tightened her eyes as Eraline clutched both of her hands in one of her own while caressing them with the other. "I have caught the news, but Lor'themar has prohibited me from letting it drip from my own lips. I will not keep you long… I just desire to extend my sympathy in person."

The warrior remained impassive as she mulled over her kin's words.

Eraline Dawnwalker, née Bloodsky, was one of the Sunfeather childrens' four cousins, the only child of Reath and M'eline Bloodsky. She was, in the unadulterated form, an aristocrat, wedded off to a Blood Knight. She was also very pregnant with his child, the movements evident under Faine's fingers.

She gave her kin a slight nod in advance to standing, taking her hands with her. "Thank you, but I trust those words would do better with my mother than with me."

She left Eraline in the upper seating area by herself, dashing down the spiral steps and through the labyrinth of passageways before seizing her thickest wrap and fleeing through the back door. The alleyway had not been cleared of the inches of snowfall that amassed from the curved roof, but she paid no mind.

Upon her entrance to the Spire, she was discernibly comforted to find that Gwionnin had been traded by another woman, the nametag of which she did not care to recite. She also disregarded the demands absconding the woman's lips as Faine pushed her way through the sheer draperies.

The room was vacant, and so the warrior took the steps two at once up to his dominant office. She did not knock, rather, she flung the door open and let herself in, as his sentries appeared to be accustomed with her form. The woman caught his perplexed stare as she barraged him with her words.

"How long have you known before thinking it was time to enlighten me?"

She slammed the door shut and tossed her wool-lined cloak to the ground as he stood. His posture indicated he was not in a disposition to be berated, specifically by a female well under his authority. "She was taken in the night by Kor'kron rogues," he commenced, not even offering her an answer to her inquiry. "Her dinner had not even been touched, rather left cold as your mother opened the door to find her room unoccupied. Not a trace," he said, rotating his back to her once more and leaning his palms against his writing table.

"I came to you with a query, not for a melodramatic retelling of my sister's abduction," Faine spat, crossing her arms. Her fingertips were numb from the cold, yet stung as she balled them into fists. She heard Lor'themar's unsteady exhalation afore he straightened to face her. He was strikingly infuriated.

"They left a letter, roughly two moons ago. They demanded gold, our collaboration, and silence in return for a splinter of her well-being. In turn they would send a lock of her hair as evidence that she was still alive, but hair does not decay as a corpse does." Saliva pitched from his mouth during his wrath.

She overlooked the connotations of sorrow and lost hope in his speech. It still did not add up to her. "But why would they take her in the first place? What did a young noble have to offer them, particularly one from Silvermoon?"

His face blanched ever so faintly before her dissecting eyes. "They are most likely torturing her for information." The sin'dorei leader's voice hesitated at the conclusion, indicating he was about to elaborate but chose not to. This did not go by Faine unnoted.

"You idiot," she exhaled. "Both of you. Idiots."

The comprehension of his guilt hit her, and her concentration ran back to a summer a few years past, when Corriana had remained with her in Orgrimmar after displeasing their mother. She had been writing notes day in and day out, receiving just as many.

Lor appeared to have grasped that she knew, as he fell to a divan and hung his head in his hands. "There was absolutely no way anyone knew," he tried, speech stifled by his stray sleeve. "Perchance there was a spy, reading our letters-"

He was interrupted by the golden pillow Faine sent soaring into his face from across the small room. "You _fool_ ," she whispered, loud enough for him to perceive. She stalked to his bench and began whacking him with her hands. "You have been gracing this planet for eras and yet your mind gives the impression that it is no older than a few days!"

He grasped her wrists and restrained her onto his lap, his knee tunnelling into her stomach while her face was pressed into the material of the davenport.

"How could you not know Garrosh has had every letter sent in and out of his city read?" Her voice was moderately covered from the position her face was in, but she still succeeded to crane her head far enough to the left to look him in the eye. "No wonder the orc knew about you… how thoughtless of you to lose your mind the minute a young woman-"

"That's enough!" The Regent Lord thundered above her, face flustered and knuckles white around the fingertips he had burrowed into her waist and neck. Faine squinted her eyes judgmentally at him, not at all threatened by both her present position and his tenor.

"You should have thought of the risks you would put my sister in if you wanted to use that tone with me," she hissed, struggling to writhe out of his grip.

A knock on the door hushed both of them and granted Lor'themar's attention, permitting the woman he had shoved halfway into his lounger to be freed. "Is everything alright in there, my lord?" One of the guards called from behind the impenetrable wooden door.

"Everything is _fine_ ," the Regent Lord retorted, shoving Faine off from the seat beside him and sending her sprawling onto the floor by his feet.

She shot him an unamused scowl as she stood, sweeping herself off and facing her back to him. She yet again overlapped her arms, one of which trickled blood down to her fingers from striking a wooden stand during her fall.

"The time to assault Orgrimmar is creeping closer," he puffed, voice uneven in the quiet room. "All I truthfully wish for is Corri's protection."

"The only time it is," she instigated without a pause, "is the time for you to stop living in denial. Throw away that blanket you have concealed yourself in. Come clean to yourself, and then to me."

She twisted back to him, met his dismayed eyes. He was entirely at her mercy, nerves raw and exposed. He had nowhere to hide.

"Your sister grasps the heart that beats in my chest; the one that courses blood through my veins and has me chastised to this world. Somewhere, eternities ago, we divided from the same atom as a star perished, and shimmered its dust across the cosmos, drifting aimlessly until once again we chanced, here on this war-torn world."

Faine collected her cape from the ground with bloodied fingers. "Use that love as your blaze, and I shall follow behind you, bathed in your light."

* * *

In the Sunfeather estate, Faine collected Evagria and Alastrine from her mother's tearoom. Ardis, virtually a rambling cadaver, bunched into herself on a tattered chair. She did not even look up to her daughter. "How long?" She rattled, shutting her eyes firmly. The warrior, signalling for the pair of holy women by her side to leave, inhaled deeply. "Any minute now."

Her mother began to weep. "Just go," she chanted like a mantra as her eldest daughter stood, dazed.

She did not move until her brother entered the humid room and lead her out by the elbow. His stature was taciturn and rigid, but his eyes remained as drained as their mother's as he gazed down at her confused face.

"It is best you wait on the steps," Pengion whispered to her, helping her with her bags and cloak before holding the front door open to her. Her companions were already outdoors, ankle-deep in the fresh snow, the paladin's murloc on her back. They would wait in the cold for a mage to come, sent by Lor'themar to teleport them straight to Stormwind.

After confessing his elegiac love for her little sister, Lor'themar had told the warrior she was better off returning to Stormwind as she flattened out her bloodied cloak, as she would be appreciated more there in advance to the siege. She then, of course, cursed him out, infuriated that she had only just arrived that sunrise and already he was sending her back onto the same boat to make the month-long voyage back to the Alliance capital.

He agreed it would be too much to ask, as an alternative offering to send a mage to her home, as well as an assemblage of elves of his selection. She could not refuse even if she wished to, and instead left him to his paperwork as she headed home.

The three women waited in the cold, Evagria and Alastrine chatting between themselves unobtrusively as the warrior looked out towards the fountain, vision indistinct by the steady fall of snow. A small group of figures rounded around the frozen water and advanced. Faine instantaneously deciphered Rommath's face from behind his azure cowl, giving her a sad smile as he stopped at the bottommost of her steps.

The women to Faine's right took the inaudible indication and descended the steps together as Rommath scaled them. He did nothing but exhale before gripping her shoulder with a gloved hand as a humble gesture of encouragement.

"I've never seen him so distressed in my life," he told her, locking eyes. "We'll find her. As far as Lor is concerned, she's coming home with him, whether she's in one piece or not."

"I appreciate your sincerity, but I am not as optimistic about the ordeal as the rest of you appear to be."

Rommath tightened his jaw at her words. "Faine, the things that you can't control are the things that wound you the most, but you are in charge of that hurt. You are your own beacon of hope. If you can't bask in the conviction of those around you, look inside yourself and find your own source. There's something in there that's worth fighting for."

She was too exhausted, too weak to take his words out of context in the moment. As an alternative she only nodded and permitted him to aid her down the steps while carrying half of her luggage. She united with the cluster of freezing elves at the foot of her home's brass staircase, bracing herself as Rommath initiated the incantation for the spell that would form their portal. She felt a small hand fleetingly squeeze her own from behind her, presumably Evagria's, as the mage completed his words and a great rift twisted between them.

Faine was the first to step in, permitting her figure and cognizance to be tossed and taken by the Twisting Nether, her eyes aflame with fortitude.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faine and Co. head right back to Stormwind, where she and Varian learn the meaning of trust.

Thrown out of the Twisting Nether and back into Stormwind, Faine gasped for breath as she faltered across the cobblestone beneath her plated feet. She steadied herself against the nearest wall as her eyes accustomed to the scene ahead of her: a handful of other blood elves in a dilemma virtually identical to her own.

In her peripherals, she noted a few human mages had stopped in their tracks to gape at the group in bafflement, all uncertain of what to do. She took the initiative.

"Just take me to Varian," the warrior rattled out in the Common tongue, the breath scorching her lungs. " _Now_."

She hesitated while a robed woman fulfilled her request. Faine took the spare moment to count the elves surrounding her, all in various phases of confusion. Both Evagria and Alastrine had made it, as well as all of Lor'themar's elves. The four women and three men stood cumbersomely around her in the overcrowded tower while they waited for whatever was to come next. Their answer came in the form of five fortified sentries, who rushed in from a great portal to their left.

"What is the meaning of this?" One of the armoured men called, sword elevated and body unseen from an immense, charmed shield, ornamented with Varian's crest. There was no uncertainty in her mind that this magnificent piece of steel could deflect a reasonable amount of magic.

"We are here to speak to your king," Faine called, crossing her arms to her chest. She was rather irritated by the theatrics. "No need to cause a scene, as we do not come bearing arms." She seized a step towards them, which resulted in four supplementary swords being outstretched towards her. She overheard weapons being drawn behind her, to which she raised a gloved hand up in soundless protest. "I do not advocate that," she cautioned the human before her. "You may regret it."

The humans did not appear to take her threat lightly, diffusing out from each other in a trilateral pattern to cover more ground, entirely obstructing her from the portal.

"Not one more step," the guard warned.

Regrettably, Faine was not recognised as one who heeded. Instead, she took another step, her eyes pointed in exasperation.

"I once again advise that you lower your weapons and escort us to the Keep. We have business to attend to with your king and you are doing naught but interrupting them."

Her argument seemed to have little influence on the guard, until she caught sight of his eyes trailing to the lion's head pin secured to her own crested tabard. Finally, he motioned, and the men and women behind him dropped their weapons and stood up straight.

He remained guarded, but nevertheless permit Faine to pass by him without additional interference.

She phased through the portal that was impassable moments ago, materializing into a new scene, one of which appeared to have transported them lower to the ground, gratified that such short distances did not impact the body as significantly as the previous one had.

She silently descended the twisting ramp, stopping when her feet hit grass that had long perished under heavy snow. The warrior waited and turned, making sure her group was following. The guards seemed to have been flanking the elves, still not trusting.

As agitated as she was, she understood they were only doing their job.

She waited until she could make eye contact with the one that looked to be in charge. "Lead us the swiftest way to the Keep."

He appeared to wordlessly approve, nearly walking past her before he stopped. "Are you the elf the people of Stormwind are whispering about?"

Faine made a face. "That is subject to what these whispers are about," she answered, suspiciously.

The man picked up his step and she shadowed closely by his right. "There's been word that the king has taken a blonde elf as his paramour." He did not elaborate.

The warrior snickered enthusiastically. "If you are insinuating that elf is me, you must surely be mistaken. Our relationship is as diplomatic as it gets. The only things we are using each other for is to further a war we are on the same side of."

The man had no reaction, and so, the group fell into silence once more.

She used this stretch to muse about how she practically recognised the streets of this city as well as she knew the ones in her own motherland. Her mind seemed to have been able to map the entire township with ease, regardless of its sheer magnitude.

It took her by wonder when she felt a twinge of sorrow at the thought of having to leave the city and the neighbouring forests of Elwynn when the threat of Hellscream waned and faded away with his demise. The woodlands of this southern region were lush and green in the summertime and did not hide necrotic reminders of slaughtered kin and undeath. Birds warbled without fear and rain was plentiful; life died and sprung anew with the seasons and great heartbreak did not hide behind the whispers of its name.

Her musings persisted until profoundly safeguarded wooden doors were in Faine's sight.

Her lips, now numb and caressed a subtle blue by the pinches of wind, had downturned into a scowl at the scene untying before her.

Varian's royal guards sloped the few steps it took to reach the improvised group, effectively halting them. The largest, both in height and in stature, spoke first.

"This is not the way to the Stockades, Sergeant Narrows." His tone was unpleasant and upon the unhindered features of his face laid a shit-eating grin.

"This is Stormwind's finest?" Faine chimed in without a pause, glancing to the de facto leader of the guards that had escorted them to their current position, seemingly named Narrows. She glimpsed back to the colossal man, their eyes now locked. "Disgraceful."

The words had just left her lips when the man in query moved to the very step Faine was standing on, demanding her to place one foot down behind her to make room for him, yet she declined to move away from him.

The blood elf overheard Narrows warning of "Commander" a single heartbeat after she heard the unsheathing of a sword, the same of which was now positioned threateningly at her neck. Two more heartbeats and a crescendo of weapons emerged from behind her, swiftly followed by the royal guards.

"Mm, I do not believe your liege will appreciate an ambassador's head on his front steps. He may just take your own for it," the blood elf advised, eyes and reddened nose scrunched in a combination of disbelief at the so-called Commander's gall and ego.

It took a second before the sword fell from the warrior's neck and her footing on the steps was given back to her. The unidentified Commander had twisted after his clear (and quick) deliberation of the situation, and he twirled a finger for the doors to be unbolted.

Faine stepped past him while casting a ghastly glower towards his own, the corner of her mouth ghosting the least of grins at his silent surrender.

* * *

Immediately upon the sight of her golden head cresting the top of his granite incline, the king of Stormwind's voice thundered and reverberated around the stone Keep.

"I want every soul in this room out, _now_ , if it isn't attached to the name of 'Sunfeather.'"

She sustained her stride towards him with determination, until just the two of them remained in the glorious throne room, a measly metre between each other.

"Where are they taking them?" She asked the human king, head extending in the direction of her exiting elves and their heavily armoured attendants. "A warded room. Do not worry about them; they will not be harmed… unless they give a reason to be." The elf's awareness instantly raced to Evagria, and she internally frowned, but said nothing to indicate that she had thought of a conceivable reason.

The human spoke first, then.

"I was not expecting you back so soon, let alone with an entire group-" he hesitated, blinked twice, and continued, "Actually, I feign the truth when I say I was expecting you back at all."

Faine exhaled. The unexpected weight of how truly tired she was, both physically and psychologically, fell on her shoulders. Varian Wrynn's gaze seemed to consistently have that effect on her; just his very existence made her feel insufficient while standing ever so close to him.

"Lor'themar and I had a miniscule quarrel," she started, before he cut her off.

"A 'miniscule,' meaning, significant enough to toss you out of your own home less than a day after your arrival?"

Her eyes shot blades at him before she rolled them. "No. Essentially, he wanted me to make my way back here to scheme with you humans, but not before burdening me with an arsenal of his best warriors. I knew the situation was dire when he passed them to me to use at my own disposal."

She caught a glimpse of surprise in his eyes, but it vanished as rapidly as it had come. "If the situation is as dire as you believe, then we should speak," he paused. "Or scheme. In private."

Faine gave him a look before nodding. "You vacated a half-mile radius upon sight of me, and you still do not consider this privacy?" She teased, but her words held a hint of sincerity. "You humans must truly be prudes."

He had chosen to disregard that, and instead indicated for her to follow him as he descended his marble steps and joined her on equal ground. His frame was enormous and intimidating, even after months of knowing him.

She trailed mutely behind him as he weaved through corridors and severely secured doorways. The soldiers further into the walls of the Keep were knowing; they had seen her presence here before, but were still on guard.

"I am surprised that I have been given a voice in this," she pondered behind him.

She was not certain if he had even heard her or not until he spoke up. "What do you mean by that?"

Faine shrugged, not observable to him, but audible by the slight protest of plate against plate amid the resonances of their plated footsteps against marble. It dawned on her that he was armoured, a likely contribution as to why she must have felt a hint of intimidation earlier.

"Your words are habitually trailed by a demand. Your earlier words held more lenience… wiggle room. As if I had a choice in turning you down, if I so wished."

He barked a laugh. It was a short one, only just entertained. "I do not get turned down."

 _Dog_ , she thought.

She let him finish. "The more I rake your brain, the more I see you as an equal. The idea of an affiliate of the Horde having higher brain function is still a foreign feeling."

She caught the joke in his tone, and chose to not take offense to his remark on her apparent aptitude. "I am wounded, Wrynn. I have observed at you as an equal since the rays of dawn of our communication."

"My faith runs thin. Specifically, with the Horde. Take caution in place of offense. It is an occupational threat." He lastly turned his head to take her eyes.

"As far as I am concerned, I do not meet the requirements of being a member of the Horde any longer. May I remind you that I am presently committing treason?" She raised an arm and swept it around herself to the walls around them, lined with cerulean velvet draperies with golden thread, as if he had forgotten whose walls they were in.

Varian stopped before a doorway. He watched her fully again, his brown eyes and worn-out face obscured with an emotion she could not quite read. "You remind me of Valeera. You carry a comparable and fierce spirit. Perhaps you came from the same speck of stardust when the cosmos was born."

She did not dwell on her thought.

"Do not compare me or mistake me with anyone else when you look at me. I am my own being with my own advanced brain function and soul."

Her words and manner were intended to cut, and the dim smile he gave her told her that her mark was true. "There she is. I was doubting whether the correct elf came through my portal. Will she accept my apologies for misidentifying her for someone else?" She scowled, and he laughed.

* * *

The room he led her in was delightful and un-Wrynn-like in design. The seating was too plush, too soft, to be in a space envisioned to initiate and negotiate war. The hangings over the walls in this room where sheen and silky, much like the ones her own people would pick out at the tailor's, in contrast to the dense velvet found nearly everywhere else in the Keep. The blues were a dark and mighty navy, but the golds were washed out and light. The canvases on the walls depicted still lifes of exotic fruit and wispy woodlands, rather than the scenes of war and honour outside. She felt like she had traversed into a detached plane of existence while entering this odd room.

She tried to envision how many lives he had decided would come to an end while he sat in this room, but could not see it in her mind. There was something off, and it was nagging at her mind, but she chose until her heavy form sank into luxurious chair to speak out about it.

"This does not… seem like you," she tried.

The king, now sitting in an correspondingly delicate chair across from her that creaked under his weight, caught what she was suggesting. "My wife decorated this room."

His words disrupted her. "You are married?" She queried, an eyebrow arching. Her eyes shot to his hands, calloused, but free of any jewelry.

"Was."

Her cheeks instantly flushed a deep burgundy at her naivety and her eyes dropped further to the untouched runner under their feet. It was sheepskin, dyed azure, and something a cooped-up noblewoman would pick out from a catalogue.

"I have never seen you do that before," his voice carried her eyes back up to his own. "Blush," he added for clarity.

The words almost seemed to have scathed her, as the blood in her cheeks rushed even more.

"What do you want from me," she bit, recomposing herself under his thrilled scrutiny of her humanoid exhibition of emotion, before he straightened.

"We require a group. An elite group, picked by my own hands. This will comprise you, the elves Lor'themar has so graciously gifted to us, and myself. I have names in mind. They are all strewn across the city as of this morning, from what my eyes tell me, anyways. I want you to go out and meet them, face-to-face. Inquire. Have them prove their devotion to me, to this cause, to you, if you can accomplish it. Spar with them if you wish. Cut them with your words. Have them show themselves worthy of even my consideration. Report back to me with your sentiments."

She did not like how spliced his thoughts were. They were organized, clear and concise. But, they were too short. She was used to his soliloquies about guts and glory, about bringing honour to the battlefield, and shedding the blood of all those that stood in his way.

Even so, she did not pry.

"Is that all you wanted to tell me?" Faine questioned. She felt what was pending, given the fact he was so sparing with his preceding words.

"Do not cross me. Do not cross my people. If you deceive me, your day of reckoning will come burning slowly, but when it does arrive, it will be by crashing down on your shoulders. The future of your bloodline will feel my fury, my betrayal, and my justified wrath."

She waited, expecting a pause for theatrics. Nothing more left his lips, and only the weight of his words, and his eyes, hung above her head.

So she laughed. It was a wondrous sound and sensation. She felt as if she had not laughed since the dawning of the unbelievably human king before her.

"I am not naive, Varian Wrynn. Remember that. I have lived your lifetime four times over; I have a more profound and more familiar understanding of what trust is than you will ever know. Your mind only dips its fingers into the tide, while mine has sunk to the sand. I know how significant trust is."

She stared at him while she stood, the cushions that were once under her, never to recuperate from the heaviness of her armour, and her next and parting words.

"Trust goes both ways, Varian. Remember that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: It's been a hot minute. College, internships, work, and relationships have all gotten in the way during the past year and a half of my life. But, I felt the pull, and managed to bust out this chapter in about 2 hours.


End file.
